All right, so now Nigel the Editor is messaging me that no one believes my nonsense, and if I don’t stop hawking my stuff and start doing my job—in particular, writing about what exactly I’m a doctor of immediately—then the publisher is gonna reconsider this whole thing.
Whoa. I mean… WHOA.
Those are some bold, bold words, my man.
When you totally screwed up my longest-“yayaya” record, I let it go. It was hard, but I let it go. And that was a chance to make history!
But this time? I don’t know, dude. You try to threaten me? Me—the Two-Time, the most dominant gaming champion the universe has ever known? You try to intimidate me? To bully me? You threaten to take away my own book?
A book I’ve poured myself into, fought for, bled for? A book I’ve been working on nonstop for at least an hour and a half after I got bored of doing much cooler stuff?
You think you can take that away from me?
Well, I got news for you, bro—I’m gonna take it away from you.
That’s right, Nigel the Editor. This is it. This is the end of the book.
No secret founding of the Champions Club. No incredible tips on how you too can have an amazing vertical leap. And damn well nothing about what I’m actually a doctor of.
It’s finished. It’s over. I’m done putting up with all your, like, editing and shit.
This, RIGHT NOW, is the official conclusion of my highly anticipated first and only memoir, Violence. Speed. Momentum.
Oh wait. I guess I need the…
Acknowledgments
Thank you to MYSELF for being such a great sport about all this. I totally couldn’t have done it without me. Later.
Yayayaya!
I. The only mustache that counts in this dimension is the glorious, standalone, beardless mustache. Because once a mustache is attached to a beard, it’s not really a mustache anymore, is it? It’s just a guy who didn’t shave for a while. Think about it.
II. If you can’t speak fluent Russian (like I can) in this dimension, LOOK IT UP. SHIT, KIDS TODAY!
CHAPTER 5 ALL RIGHT, I’M BACK
Nigel the Editor begged for forgiveness and bought ten cases of SLICK, BY DOC, and I very graciously marked up the price by 120 percent and agreed to keep writing my book.
Way I look at it, this is a win-win-win situation, because I get tons of money, the boys at the publishing office smell great—or at least as great as bookworms can possibly smell—and you guys get to keep devouring all my priceless pearls of wisdom to give meaning to your otherwise pointless lives.
But I still haven’t forgiven Nigel the Editor. I mean, I’ll think about it. But some wrongs can’t be made right, you know? Some fences can’t be mended. I might seem invincible on the outside, but deep down… well, I’m pretty much invincible—but still, no one threatens me. No one tells me what to do, and no one, I mean no one, out-negotiates Dr Disrespect.
CHAPTER 6 THE DOC’S FIRST SPONSOR
Every big-time gamer remembers his first sponsor. Even gamers less big-time than me, and that’s all of them.
To get that first paycheck with your name on it, not because you’re flipping grease at a Burger-Rama or sitting in some shitty little cubicle with your clip-on tie, but because you’re a stone-cold killer on an 8K battlefield of mayhem.
Because you’re contributing something real and powerful and important to society—video game dominance.
That, my friend, is an awesome feeling. That is flying with the eagles through the storms and above the clouds and into the sun. That is the flavor of true success.
Of course, you look at punk-kid gamers these days, and they all got it easy. They’re nine years old, they’re eating their Mr. T cereal, they’re munching on Pop-Tarts and chewing on Bubble Tape, and then they decide—“What the hell, I’m gonna jump on some new streaming platform and play a little Fortnite and see if I can get a few followers, why not?”
And the next thing you know, they’re making six figures from some sports-energy drink based out of Shanghai.
But back when I got started in the nineties? Back before streaming wars and PS4s and 8K LCDs and 1080p’s and Chinese sports-energy drinks with five billion yuan to toss at little punks?
Shiiiit, you had to fight to survive. You had to earn your keep with blood and violence and cunning. You had to know what you were worth and how to get what you wanted. And if you didn’t?
Then you died.
Or maybe, I don’t know, you got a real job, which is almost worse.
But maybe you literally died!
I know, because it almost happened to me when I got my very first sponsor.
It was 1998. For the past few years, ever since I’d won my second Blockbuster Video Game Championship, I’d been taking accelerated, advanced prototype classes in high school during the week and traveling to tournaments on the weekend.
Thinking back, it must’ve been hard on the other kids in my class, having to walk the tiled halls in the shadow of a national celebrity like me. By the time I hit my teens I was already six foot four with the baby-oiled body of a Greek god, a fully grown Slick Daddy, a glorious, silky black-on-black-on-black mullet, and, of course, full body armor.
Then you had everyone else. A bunch of pimply turds in khakis and blue jeans. Their midsections flabby, their upper lips soft and sweaty, their faces covered in stress rashes from their next AP Calculus exam. I almost felt sorry for them.
Just kidding, I fucking loved it! And I aced AP Calc because I’m a Mensa-certified genius.
When that weekend rolled around? Man, I competed everywhere. I went to every tournament I could find, no matter where, no matter when, no matter how big or how small. I dominated the Radio Shack Videoganza in
